This is the easiest Kanon fight, and, bad news, she will still absolutely #$^& you up. Kanon is very fast and very strong, and your only saving grace is that her attacks are entirely physical, so you might get a lucky miss or counter. Other than that, your best bet is probably to max Lilka’s speed with spells, and rely on her Level 2 healing spell. Tim’s First Aid will go always go first, but Kanon doesn’t attack the whole party, she just hits one party member really hard. Thus, First Aid probably won’t heal one party member enough to keep said member alive. Other than that hiccup, though, it’s just a matter of hurting and healing as much as possible.

Kanon is one bad mama jama, but she should be survivable at this point.

Take that, strange robot lady!

“But this isn't over yet. I will fulfill my oath to myself! ...My oath to kill all monsters! I will hunt you down, no matter where you run to!”

She seems nice.

Kanon just tosses in this nugget that will never be revisited again. And why are you talking to Vinsfeld about Brads and Billys, young lady?

Toodles!

So, nothing more to do here. May as well at least get out of this haunted mansion.

And Irving isn’t offering much in the way of insight. Guess it’s time to hang out in town until something else explodes again.

“Okay, we’re back in Quartly. Have a mission for us now?”

“Where in the desert?”

“Dammit!”

So, with absolutely no directions, you’re expected to wander over the desert area south of Quartly and hope for the best. Side note: this whole “radar” system is getting old.

Here we are.

Bad guy cutscene!

Thanks, Vinny!

Man, Vinsfeld really knows how to cut and run.

…. What?

That’s what I said!

Double what?

These two have a really weird relationship.

Maybe he just asks all his subordinates if they hate him?

Maybe not.

Okay, on that cheery note, we’re going to break for this update, as the next one is going to be rather… explosive.

Previously on Wild Arms: Kanon tricked us into lurking around an old castle, and we got to learn more about Brad’s past. You ever notice how a “mysterious character” on a television show always gets a flashback to their torrid history before they randomly kick the bucket? Don’t know why, I just happened to think about that.

Anyway, on to Odessa’s “secret” Alchemic Plant.

And, apparently, we’ve been discovered seven seconds after entering the front door. Note for next time: don’t use the friggen front door.

The Alchemic Plant is another dungeon that has a variety of a whole two “random” monsters. We either get robot samurai white, or robot samurai black. They’re not very exciting.

Oh yeah, so Ashley thinks Odessa has been tipped off about their invasion, and it could potentially be Brad feeding Odessa information. It couldn’t be that Odessa has an entire security system set up for this entire eventuality.

Like Liz & Ard’s bridge, this area doesn’t have “real” random encounters, it just has a series of floating orbs that instigate battles on contact. The walkways in this area are a lot narrower than the bridge, so encounters are slightly more difficult to avoid… but they’re still not much of a threat. I guess fight for the EXP if you feel like it.

Try not to fall into any giant, open pits, though.

Red orbs move faster than silver orbs… just not fast enough.

… Who designed this place?

Here’s a black/white duo for posterity.

So the basic “trick” for the first part of this dungeon is that the walkways are very narrow, and you’re expected to properly navigate a maze with many “only choice is to fall in a pit” dead ends. If you’ve got mastery of the camera, it shouldn’t be too hard to find your way, though.

It’s a little more difficult to avoid the monsters, though.

See, here’s a good point where, should you not rotate the camera, you’d never know the path to the right is a dead end. Same for the left, even though we can’t immediately see it.

Done with that for the moment.

Hey! No camping!

Odessa stamped their logo all over their secret base. Vinsfeld knows that branding is important.

Aw, the previous area looks so small from up here.

There is a lot of walking in this dungeon.

Finally! We’re at the Odessa Bat Computer!

Brad? Since when are you the computer genius? I guess the Slayheim Liberation Army had an excellent CS program.

Let’s split up in the middle of the enemy base! That always works well!

So Brad leaves the party to stand here and press buttons for the next half hour. God speed, Brad!

Ashley, I swear to God…

Dungeon Part 2: For Lack of a Brad.

And we get like six steps forward before being attacked by an invincible robot.

A random robot is thwarting our advances (I hate those things), so let’s see what’s in the back.

Found an Odessa dude camping out, but Ashley isn’t so much into enhanced interrogation.

So this is cool…

The “call” command has, thus far, only been used for contacting home base and getting a lead on our next objective. It has basically been nothing more than a hint system up to this point…

But now it can now be used to spy on Odessa conversations! Neat! This will be the gimmick of the second part of this dungeon, and the robot and its manager are basically the tutorial portion.

Doesn’t like temperature changes, eh? Time to alternate Lilka’s fire and ice rods to blast a bot.

From here on, we’ve got larger hallways with many closed doors. The call command is going to get a workout.

Lilka, you snoop.

It is a wonder that Odessa has been this successful.

Sneaking around… here we are.

Well, I have no idea what any of this means.

But I can take a wild guess where it’s supposed to be used.

We might have the cipher, but we still need the password. Moving on.

Another door, another excuse to spy on nitwits.

… Is that supposed to mean something?

Ooooooh now I get it. Look at the letters vertically.

QOW is one column, then one column back is ONM, that means the next password should be…

ISK

Legitimately, if you can’t quite figure out how the vertical reading works for that puzzle, you’re probably going to be stuck for a while. The code book looks like a jumble or letter-replacement puzzle, but it’s basically just a matter of picking out the pattern immediately.

Now we’ve got a save room with exits on three sides (well, technically four, but we just came from one door). Let’s try heading left to start.

Guess what it’s time for!

Hey, this guy is talking to head honcho Antenora herself. Let’s remember that for later.

Antenora… has her own harem of gimps? Okay, yeah, Vinny likes them kinks.

Yeah, we all knew where this was going.

Antenora Boss Fight #2.

In retrospect, it is kind of obvious that Antenora’s weapons are supposed to be literally threads. In my defense, though, “threads” isn’t exactly an exciting weapon (outside of Blade Runner, at least).

Threads really look like lasers!

The fresh new problem of this fight is that Brad is now MIA, so we’re stuck with two mages and Ashley. As such, it’s probably a good idea to pump Ashley full of FP until he mighty morphs into Knight Blazer, so then he can do enough damage for the whole party. Tim is really lackluster on the offense at this point, so stick him on healing, and let Lilka, I don’t know, play with some marbles or something. Maybe cast a fire spell? That could work.

Eat laser sword, lady!

Strangely, Odessa leaders never drop any cash. I guess they really are a poor terrorist organization.

Thanks for the tip, jerk!

Oh no!

Brad! Say it ain’t so!

It’s not great, Ant.

…. What the hell?

What? Antenora, this is crazy.

Okay, so you can perfectly clone Brad, and the best you could do with that technology is screw with Ashley, once, in an alley? Even assuming these doppelgangers can only simulate Brad (and not, say, a country’s leader) couldn’t Odessa have, I don’t know, organized an army of Brads? Or had the DoppelBrad actually “for real” infiltrate the party? Or sneak into Valeria Chateau and detonate the place while ARMS was across the planet? Or… literally anything else!?

And why the hell did you reveal the plan now? You could have just kept ARMS thinking they had a traitor! You could have doppled other ARMS members and torn ARMS apart! And you didn’t stir up that much distrust! You just kinda annoyed Ashley a bit! Tim and Lilka didn’t have a clue!

And Real Brad is right here now anyway!

Okay, I guess that’s why they never got a Brad Clone army together.

If you look closely, you will notice that the Dopples are slightly greener than OG Brad.

If you look closely, you will notice that the Dopples are slightly greener than OG Brad.

The real doppelgangers were the friends we made along the way.

“I trust Brad #5!”

Brad! Could you have at least waited until we were maybe ten feet away from the inter-dimensional bomb!?

Really? We have like six other ways to destroy this base. Tim can still summon gods, Ashley.

Brad has a bazooka! And a missile launcher!

And he could probably punch this place to death.

And he’s got a bomb on his neck that he can never remove.

Wait! That’s the worst plan!

Oh, good, the Dopple Bros are back in action.

Somewhere in there, I guess someone noted that Eat My Dust only could only blow up the floor or something (this absolutely never happened). Being at ground zero for Brad’s newest blast won’t do your internal organs any favors.

Dammit! Stop trying to be Billy! Or maybe Brad!

“Don’t worry, guys, my neck explodes all the time.”

Sayonara, space cowboy.

“I’m not crying, you’re crying, Lilka.”
“No, I’m not.”

Brad is walking away really slowly.

Not pictured: Ashley and company having to walk backwards through that whole stupid dungeon.

It sure happened a lot in Final Fantasy 4.

If you’re going to explode, at least do it in the proper exploding room.

“He” was stopping a bomb, Brad. You are a bomb.

Meh, I’m sure Brad will be fine.

Juuuuuust fine.

Gonna come out of there aaaaaany minute.

Probably just in the bathroom. He’ll be back soon. Real soon. He probably escaped, and it was a different bomb that…

Previously on Wild Arms: This update is posted in memory of Brad Evans, who died as he lived: silently meditating the nature of heroism while actively blowing stuff up. Donations in his honor may be sent to the Slayheim Liberation War Orphans Fund.

Our last update ended with the party back at Valeria Chateau. This is actually the first time the plot has chilled while we’re inside the chateau since the thing got rocket boosters, so let’s take a quick tour of the extra floors.

There are a few crewmen wandering about offering reasons to not use the flying castle. You want to keep your job, private?

And we can… pretend to be Irving at the helm? You there! Go fetch me magical rocks!

The Valeria Chateau main deck is Floor 4, but we now also have B1 and B2 available. We’ve technically been to these floors, but only during cutscenes.

B1 hides this dude that can be pretty useful.

Elemental Rings are expensive, but they will add elemental attributes to your attacks and defense. This isn’t all that useful for random mobs, but some bosses are very elemental-based, so a set of three for the party could cut down a game over-ing multi-hit attack to a mere tickle. This is useful particularly for some of the optional super bosses, and all but required for the super-duper death of all things optional boss of the franchise.

… Basically, remember this dude is here in like sixty updates.

Also, may as well note here that “water” and “ice” are two different elements in Wild Arms 2, as are “wind” and “lightning”. Also, I’m betting that “Lightning Ring” was too many characters, so “Thor Ring” had to do.

Irving has his own jail in the basement. Can’t say I’m surprised.

B2 is where we went through that whole “bomb frog on a launching platform” debacle. There’s also a guy down here that really wants The Atom to join ARMS.

Gabacho is the hero we all deserve.

Speaking of heroes, remember how the dearly departed Brad always took the wheel with flying machines and giant computers and whatnot? Apparently there are tales of The Hero of Slayheim’s best buddy, a guy that was “a whiz at machines and flying”. While I enjoy the subtlety creeping around the edges of the main story, I kind of wish Wild Arms 2 did more to separate “Slayheim Army Brad” from “Present Brad” (or “Past Brad”, sob). I kind of want to see the (possible) Brad that was Billy’s (“Billy”) subordinate, who may have secretly been Launchpad McQuack.

Okay, back up to Floor 4 to steer out of this place.

And we have to return to Quartly… which doesn’t have a landing pad… so our flying castle is as useless as ever. Valeria Chateau, you had an eagle's introduction, and now you’re an albatross.

Teleport over to Quartly…

Spend as little time in this stink town as possible…

Scoot across the haunted salt flats of Slayheim…

Head over to this conspicuous mountainous area…

And here we are. Time to escort Guild Galad’s son.

I bet this train station between a thriving industrial center and its completely eradicated neighbor sees a lot of foot traffic.

Say hi to our new choo choo.

“Hi Noel! Does your dad have a name aside from Guild Galad Master?”
“Nope!”

Ashley is now the de facto ambassador of ARMS.

It’s the little things that make WA2. Lilka doesn’t say a word, but a quick glance in Ashley’s direction indicates her embarrassment at Ashley’s introduction abilities.

But whatever! A paycheck is a paycheck! … Wait… Have we ever been paid?

But hey! Train ride!

Ashley is distracted by the fact that this train is also carrying other, non-Noel cargo.

Okay, so if you didn’t notice the Raiden hats on Noel’s crew, Guild Galad is supposed to be not only the technological center of Filgaia, but also some kind of Fantasy Far East, and more China than Japan. Thus, some of the names around here get a little crazy. I can at least perform a cursory Google check on this one, so “Dianbai” is a place in China, and “Guang” is another place in China, and the name basically means “big”. Anybody with some Chinese knowledge want to help out here?

“Ashley, I would find that insulting if this train wasn’t traditionally used to transport my collection of Hammer Pants.”

“Prince” Noel is basically angling for that coal miner vote. He’s just a down-home, average joe kinda heir to the most technologically advanced country on the planet.

Conductors and their schedules…

Train, train take us away. Take us away, far away. To the future we will go. Where it leads no one knows.

Noel is a good guy, but his crew is full of nerds.

And Noel is fully aware of this fact. He’s actually concerned that having more people around is going to draw the attention of the only terrorist organization on this planet.

Billy had his Brad, Brad had his Ashley…

“Father's personality is what it is, but everything he does is for Guild Galad. He too wishes to return to a kinder and gentler world.”

Yes, I’m sure that’s the end goal of the guy who technically has the largest collection of weapons on the planet.

Brad is pushing up daisies, so it falls to Ashley to wax philosophical about the nature of war. This is gonna be a long train ride.

Right!? Even Lilka is getting bored, and she loves trains.

Uh-oh.

The conductor rushes in! Also, shouldn’t he be conducting the train?

Dammit!

Are we going to fight… geography?

No, you’re going to hide in the train while we wander around a dungeon.

So we’re expected to leave the train, but the conductor is nice enough to let us save before heading out to see what’s up.

The great train robbery is an exciting and venerated trope in the Western genre. It is inevitably thrilling when a speeding train is involved, near misses happen at every turn, and some poor schlub has to duck to avoid losing his head to a tunnel. Aaaaand Wild Arms 2 comes this close to doing such a thing, but chickens out and parks its train at a glowing fantasy dungeon. Dammit. Guess we’ll all have to play Final Fantasy 15 for exhilarating train times.

So welcome to the Emulator Zone. Here you’ll find all the latest roms and warez. We’ve got the patched version of Final Fantasy 5, but you’ll need to upgrade if you want to play the version that allows you to actually see in the Ship Graveyard.

Wait, I might be thinking of something else. This is a dungeon very much like Lilka’s opening area (Millennium Puzzle) that starts off with a really easy block pushing/pulling puzzle.

This is one of those dungeons. Go in the right door to proceed. Go in the wrong door, and your position resets, and you’re likely to be a few rooms back. Go in the exactly right sequence, or never make any progress at all. And all the rooms look very alike. I hate these things.

Uuuuugh. Can’t I just chase a flute playing skeleton or something?

Oh, that doorway looks important. Let’s get out of here.

Dammit! Doors that are not glowing and activated are no doors at all.

This area has random encounters, but like Alchemical Plant and the Vanderwhatever, monster mobs are severely limited. We’ll only encounter Odessa Man 2s here, and they’re not all that exciting.

Basic attacks, a random status ailment or two, and you’ve seen everything these dorks have to offer. For the entire dungeon.

So anyway, that room took us back to the beginning of the dungeon (ugh), and, on a second trip through the area, we found this room with a plaque.

Oh, good. This dungeon is stupid and has puzzles.

So, in the room with the deactivated doorway, you’re supposed to “look back” and double back over the “entrance” door.

This will lead to this room that contains…

The only treasure chest in the whole dungeon.

New tool for Tim! Yay!

This is another projectile tool. Air Ballet (I swear, even Tim’s tools sound intentionally emasculating) can be used to “shoot” blocks and objects so they move around. Strangely, due to a limited number of moveable blocks in WA2, this becomes Tim’s least used tool.

But it’s useful here.

Now that big door has been activated, but some voice is talking to us about magical keys.

Nice to meet you, too.

Caina! Yes! The last of the big four. Finally! We’ve fought the other guys twice already!

The kid just likes playing with trains, I guess.

After pulling the whole “spooky voice” shtick, Caina just strolls up to the party. Really thought we’d have to fight through more dungeon to find the guy. … Err…. Girl.

Boss fight!

And, since we haven’t gotten there yet, let’s talk about Caina. Caina is the youngest member of Cocytus, and she wields a magical key that allows the summoning of demons and alternate dimensions. You would expect there to be some explanation for Caina’s nigh-godlike abilities, or where the key came from, or something, but, nope, there’s just a magical key, and you’re going to have to deal with that. The key appears to be sentient? I don’t know. You want a full explanation of keyblades, you’re going to have to look elsewhere.

Caina is also the biggest “true believer” in Odessa. While the other members have their own reasons for joining, Caina truly believes in Vinsfeld’s ideals lock, stock, and barrel. There’s also a strong implication that this wholehearted dedication to Vinsfeld has translated into an unreciprocated crush, and… that leads to the other big thing about Caina.

In the American version of Wild Arms 2, Caina is female.

In the Japanese version of Wild Arms 2, Caina is male.

In both versions, yes, Caina definitely has a thing for Vinsfeld.

At first blush, this could easily be the ol’ “hetero washing” of any even potentially homosexual relationship in a piece of media as it skips across the Pacific (see also: an embarrassing amount of localized 90s anime). On the other hand, the localization of Wild Arms 2 is so… confused at times, that it’s entirely likely the translation team simply looked at the effeminate kid with a crush on a male superior and assumed “that’s a girl!” And it can’t help that Caina appears to be wearing a Sailor Moon-esque giant ribbon on his butt, either. I can see how someone would get confused (but, then again, on my first playthrough of Chrono Trigger, I thought Lucca was a boy).

Anyway, one way or another, it doesn’t really impact the story. Caina is still the kid in a group of murderers, and he/she still has a crush on her/his boss. As far as representation scrubbing goes, it sucks to lose a homosexual character, but, on the other hand, maybe it’s not the worst thing, as then the only confirmed homosexual character in the story would be evil as all get out, and that’s not that great, either.

So, for the purpose of the LP, I’ll be referring to Caina as female, as I am playing the version where that’s accurate. Though I reserve the right to completely forget that at times. I do personally see Caina as a boy mass murderer, and not a girl mass murderer.

Fun fact: Caina is the only Odessa member without a last name, which may indicate she’s supposed to be an orphan, and thus a fairly perfect evil analogue to Tim. … Though I don’t think Tim has a crush on Ashley. This isn’t Nier.

Also, were this another universe, it’s pretty obvious that Caina would be piloting Green Lion, for all sorts of reasons.

“That day of the Demon Summoning, if not at the <Sword Cathedral>... If you hadn't returned alive with the Demon inside you, our goals wouldn't be undone!”

Also, Caina holds a grudge directly against Ashley. This makes Caina the one Cocytus member to so much as learn an ARMS member’s name.

But, yeah, guess this is the first Ashley is learning there’s a reason there’s a demon/magic sword stuck in his soul. Also, that Caina is arguably directly responsible for every dead monster-man that Ashley had to kill at Sword Cathedral.

“That would have been a great time to go super saiyan, Ashley.”
“I know. Sorry. Forgot my hair dye.”

Caina basically requires healing every turn from one of your support squirts, but, otherwise, this isn’t a very difficult battle. Keep Ashley on the offense, power up to Knight Blazer when available, and let the kid have it.

Caina also counters often, so if Lilka and Tim aren’t doing much damage, it’s best to keep them exclusively on support.

The biggest threat in this battle is completely arbitrary: Caina can use a move that inflicts a random status attack. Poison is a big fat who cares, but sleep can be annoying. If Ashley, your main attacker, gets confused, though, that’s going to ruin your day. Keep on the pressure, though, and the battle should be over before you know it.

Be sure to see a physician if your mental convergence breaks.

So Caina whines a bit and teleports away. I see Odessa has a protocol for losing battles.

He said to dead air.

Caina might be gone, but the Emulator Zone is still here. I mean, of course it is, we haven’t gone through that one door yet.

If you’re hurting from the previous battle, you’ll want to temporarily retreat and save at the train. If not, lay on, MacTim.

Time for Emulator Zone Part 2: Teleporter Maze. I hate everything and everyone.

The first area of this section is basically two rooms with weird, staggered pathways. You can see that in this room you can go up and down stairs to the right, but you have to drop off a ledge of no return to the left.

But even if you fall, you can pop around on purple diamond teleporters and find your way back up… though maybe not in the exact same room. If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is, and I hate it.

And then we get to this nonsense. These are a series of staggered platforms, and you have to choose the right teleporters to make your way up toward a doorway.

Technically, you are teleporting between different rooms (I think three different rooms, but I’m not paying enough attention to this hateful nonsense to confirm), so it’s not just a matter of aiming for a destination and hoping the teleporters get you closer. You have to think fourth dimensionally.

And, as if you had any doubt, there are useless random battles to break your concentration.

Finally made it to one “big” exit.

Some giant translucent crystal is keeping this place going.

Welp, anybody got a bomb on their neck to blow this sucker up? (Too soon!)

Ashley says to try something, but then doesn’t do anything. Useless neophyte leadership.

But Tim can do something! Use the Air Ballet to shove over a block…

And that looks like we’re making progress. Only two more blocks to go!

And to reach those blocks, we have to navigate the stupid tiered teleport maze at least another two times. I hate these things. Have I mentioned that yet?

Didn’t Kanon already say this last time? Or maybe she just alluded to it. Kanon isn’t after Ashley, technically, she just wants to murder Lord Blazer, the demon trapped inside Ashley. Fun fact: Lord Blazer once destroyed the world.

Ash is like, “Because you’re trying to kill demons?” and Kanon is like, “I have other interests!”

Kanon Fight V2. Rematches are coming fast and furious in this section of the game.

Gasp! Kanon is a descendant of the Sword Magess, the woman that banished Lord Blazer however many centuries ago. Note that Kanon is not directly a descendant of Sword Magess, more of an heir to the Sword Magess’s sister or something. Sword Magess spent her time not worrying about boys, but studying the blade.

Yes, Kanon went full robot woman in pursuit of becoming the ultimate weapon against Lord Blazer. She had her womb replaced with a switchblade. It is really uncomfortable.

On to the fight! The last time we fought Kanon, Brad was around, and his absence is keenly felt here. Be on your guard, literally, as, in a normal, non-cheating game, Tim is likely to go down in one hit from Kanon. And, honestly, you may as well leave him dead. Attack with Ashley, heal with Lilka, and hope for the best.

If you want, you can revive Tim, but don’t bother using anything more industrious than Lilka’s low level Life spell. Sure, he’ll come back with very little HP, but he’s going to die in a hit anyway, so don’t worry about it.

Eventually, the battle ends, and Kanon reveals that we just wrecked the place through block pushing. I think we knew that already.

Yay! New friend!

I think she just said why…

I’m gonna go ahead and make that my new OKCupid profile.

Ashley really wants to be friends with Kanon (and it’s not just because he likes the way she keeps murdering Tim).

Kanon offers the ol’ “if I stop fighting for the one thing I’ve been fighting for all this time, then what I am?” excuse. Hey, blood vendettas against ancient demons are what keep JRPG worlds turning.

Aaaand Kanon left us behind with a “get out now or die” timer. I guess the truce only extended to “not going to fight you right now”.

You know what’s worse than a teleporter maze? A teleporter maze with a timer!

Luckily, backtracking through this area isn’t nearly as annoying as making forward progress. Half of these “traps” are meant to send you back to an entrance (not exit) doorway, and now all of our entrances are exits, so getting out of here isn’t so bad.

Odessa Man 2s are still around, but they don’t impact the countdown in any way.

And we made it out with plenty of time to spare. Assuming you don’t get in some kind of door loop (and somehow don’t notice), this escape sequence should be pretty easy.

“Also, did you see a green-haired robo lady around here? No? Whatever, truce is off.”

Trains are known for their ludicrous acceleration.

ARMS is going to try the ol’ “jettison the cargo to go faster” trick. Was that in Back to the Future 3?

“Well, they didn’t try to kidnap you while we left the train completely unguarded, so probably not?”

Lilka is the only person here that has ever been trapped in another dimension, so she’d know.

Conductor! Do more train stuff!

Basic physics are go!

The conductor objects for some reason, but ol’ Noel has his head on straight.

And this reminds Lilka of her sister for some reason. Does anyone that isn’t a complete asshole trigger Lilka’s “sis…” reaction?

Considering “what may happen” is “us stuck in another dimension”, that’s fine.

The train detaching sequence was never meant to be immortalized in GIF form, but I’m a terrible person.

Yes yes, we’re all very concerned for whatever stupid cargo you had in there. We’ll get you a new Beanie Baby collection.

Thank you, Ashley.

Thank you, Noel. I really like this kid. It would eventually become the whole plot of Wild Arms 4, but WA2 seems to lean heavily into “the children are our future.”

Had enough of trains for this game, let’s get out of here.

You would think the entire point of a railway system would be to take people directly to a city, and not involve miles of walking from station to town, but you’d be wrong.

There’s like one woman hanging out at this train station, and she’s not that interesting.

But you can use Pooka to fish a new hat out of a treasure chest at the other end of the place.

Hooray! We needed a save point after all that nonsense.

And now a brisk walk across the expanse of Guild Galad territory. If you’re curious about how far we went via train, compare the mini map here to the pre-boarding shot.

There’s this incredibly conspicuous peninsula of beach, but no Guild to be found.

And there are these chubby starfish monsters, too.

Here we are, next peninsula over.

Unlike other towns, we get a neat little “town intro” upon entering. Unfortunately the town isn’t all that interesting. It’s basically a giant, indoor mall with a vaguely factory-esque aesthetic. However, they do have a cool dragon fossil.

Steam is literally coming out of his ears, I think we’re past the point of “rude”.

Noel must have gotten his chill from his mother.

Yeah, come on, all the people involved survived and…

Ohhhhh.

What? Dammit! The last Super Weapon we saw turned an entire nation into salt! And made Brad sad!

Ashley, the adults are talking.

“And weapons are bad, if you didn’t get that.”

Ashley isn’t mad, he’s just disappointed.

“We talking like ‘city destruction’ or more like ‘world destruction’? Did it come with a manual?”

Well, if someone left it lying around, it can’t be that bad. I bet it’s just…

… Aw damn.

“You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.”

Thanks a lot, Einstein.

That’s one (sadistic) way of looking at it.

Thank you, Ant, for being the voice of reason. Mostly.

And Vinsfeld elaborates. A quick note here, but Wild Arms 2 is distinctly not using a fantasy “Angel Weapon” or whatever here, they are talking about straight up nuclear weapons, and their theoretical value as a deterrent against war (well, hot wars). This is surprisingly heady for a fantasy old west JRPG where one character just earned a tool that magically shoves blocks.

Oh, and Vinsfeld switched to maniacal laughing in the span of one text box.

Yeah, come on, not like they’re just going to put a nuclear bomb next to their amiibos.

Assuming they don’t blow up the table itself…

Because I guess the script decided to get more introspective at the sight of nuclear weapons…

“On our many missions, we have come across many different people. All had their own ideas and their own way of doing things. I'm only stating the obvious, of course. Even people who shared the same goal used different methods to achieve that goal. In short, no two people think alike. Accordingly, words like ‘conquer’ and ‘dominate’ mean different things to different people.”

Ashley starts to gush about some of the central themes of this plot.

And, yes, conquering the world does take a lot of work.

Lilka of all people brings us back to reality. And reality is that we have to punch people until they fall down.

Previously on Wild Arms 2: We rode a train! And saved Noel from another dimension! Good job all around, everybody!

Oh, but we lost a nuke to Odessa. You miss one tiny detail…

So let’s take a quick tour of Guild Galad before we head off to parts unknown. Once again, if you recall, signs and whatnot up to this point have been in English, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got Chinese going through the Asian-themed Guild Galad. Or maybe it’s Japanese? Point is that Guild Galad is deliberately supposed to be “foreign” compared to the more West-themed other countries of Filgaia.

Word travels fast on this planet.

We don’t actually get a “story event” that tells us our next mission, but some of the NPCs are happy to point out our next destination.

Man, 2017 in a nutshell. Am I right? Huh? Huh?

This appears to be a Guild Galad church. Or shrine? GG apparently has some kind of worship… uh… room?

D’aww.

This isn’t just complete nonsense, there is a minor sidequest that is set off by staying at this inn often. Unfortunately, I don’t think it triggers right now, so we’ll come back later.

All the common vendor stands are on hand. Feel free to upgrade you gear to the currently available max. Interestingly enough, we still have a lot of game to go, but I want to say that this is the last town on the planet (second to last, depending on if you count a town from the intro that we haven’t officially revisited yet).

You may recall that we were gifted a teleporting hovercraft at the end of the last update. Now we can explore the Outer Sea. There are a few optional dungeons available now, but, by and large, we’ll hit those when we have an even better mode of transportation (and a party that isn’t 66% mages).

Using the Call command will give you a hint to your future if you didn’t already get the info from some NPCs.

We’ve already been to Damzen twice now…

So let’s teleport over to Holst.

You may remember this town as being the place where we fished a gem out of a mine. It was also where Brad picked up his bombs tool? Look, it was kind of a boring update, and I apologize if you’ve forgotten.

And the local scuttlebutt is that Odessa is creeping around not the local mine that is right there, but another mine up to the northeast.

Guess we have some walking to do…

But, thanks to steep cliffs, we can’t seem to reach the mine area (or the entire northern chunk of the island).

But! The hovercraft followed us here with our recent teleport, so now we can teleport to the nearby hovercraft…

Hit the southern beach that loops around to the north…

And here we are! The whole “teleporting hovercraft” thing is neat, but it seems to encourage a lot of “fast travel” teleporting, and not much actual exploring. Then again, Wild Arms 2 gates most of its exploring through plot flags anyway, so it’s not really a great loss.

I can safely say this area won’t explode, as there’s a monster pyramid we are legally required to revisit.

Tim pops in to say that he can’t “feel any energy” in this abandoned mine. Huh?

And Pooka (remember him? …. Uh… it?) explains that Tim can “feel” the Earth, so he’s a human divining rod. Good to know. Not a terribly useful skill for a mercenary group, but good to know.

So Odessa is trying to secure a… used up mine? Something doesn’t wash here…

Probably that we’re talking to a purple fuzzball and should maybe get the quasi-mission over with.

At least this cave is going to distinguish itself with a few traps and puzzles. First issue: bats.

Bats will damage your party and knock back your leader. Effectively, they work like every other trap in the game (like spikes), but are more mobile.

Can you find all the bats in this picture?

And here is our “puzzle”. Press the switch, watch the spark travel through the fuse, and then, bang, we’ve got a door. Pretty straightforward to start.

There are also some abandoned crates that do and contain nothing.

Few more rooms, few more switches.

There are so many “things” in this dungeon that we didn’t even get an encounter until about the halfway point.

Nothing to write home about here.

Just some manner of hand-shaped lizard creature.

In Filgaia, most dragons are turtles.

Who designed this bridge!?

I’ve been workshopping a good Batman/Bat Cave pun this whole week, and I got nothing. “I am the night”? Look, I’m trying.

Now for the real puzzle.

You can clearly see the path of the fuse, but there are broken pipes that are leaking water onto the fuse line. You have to shut off the pipes when the spark is coming through, but the pipes will leak again if you leave ‘em alone.

Basically, it’s a matter of identifying which valves shut off which spouts, and getting to the right valve at the right time. It’s not difficult, but it does require a little more footwork than your average WA2 puzzle.

Pull it off, and you never have to do a similar puzzle ever again.

Now for bats and holes!

Lots of bats! Lots of holes!

The mine eventually gives way to what appear to be ancient ruins. The other mine on this island did the same thing, so no big surprise.

Save point! This is arguably one of the most important save points in the game.

ShockSlide is another “hit all enemies” type Arm for Ashley. It is not all that exciting, even when it actually hits.

Also, don’t get too greedy about the treasure in this room (or do, because losing like 10 HP is no big deal).

The architecture of this area is not as interesting as the WA2 designers imagined.

And who should be at the end of this dungeon but our old friend Kanon. Didn’t we call a truce?

Nice throne! Always a good idea to wait for the heroes in a room with a chair.

Sure, of course Tim would say that, Kanon knocked him unconscious like six times during their last fight.

“If wishes were horses I wouldn’t have to hold a knife to your throat.”

Yeah yeah, Sword Magess, we get it.

But thou must!

“Technically, when I turn into Knight Blazer, my skin becomes a sort of armor…”
“Shut-up!”

… Maybe I’ll talk about this now? Okay, just for a second, but we’ll revisit it when we have more of a grasp of Kanon. I might be giving WA2 too much credit, and it might be an accident of the weirdo translation, but, seriously? Kanon is a walking trans metaphor, right? Painful surgery, name change (mentioned later this update), complete alteration of outward appearance, “I have thrown away my womanhood” last update, and even a whole world that treats Kanon harshly for being “different”. I wouldn’t expect such a thing of a 1999 JRPG, but it seems like all the pieces are there.

But now back to the battle.

So this is arguably one of the most difficult boss battles in the game. You’re still stuck with a lousy team of two support characters with low HP and one Ashley, and there hasn’t been much opportunity to level up between the train and here (it wasn’t deliberate, but in this playthrough, there were literally FOUR random encounters between Kanon boss fights). Kanon, unfortunately, has upgraded since the last fight, and, while she still has the same “only hits one character, but hits quickly and hard” pattern, I will remind you that she could already kill Tim instantly last time. Now Lilka is also on the instant hit list, and it’s incredibly likely that Kanon will kill 2/3s of your party in 2 turns. That is not good!

Your best bet is to follow the same methods as last time: have Tim defend, Lilka heal, and Ashley go nuts on offense. Hopefully Kanon doesn’t murder everybody instantly, but if anyone drops, just heal the minimum to get them up and running again. Kanon is murder in this fight, and you may as well not waste any consumables topping anybody off.

But the fight isn’t impossible, and there is a savepoint nearby, so hopefully the RNG will help you out at least once.

(And incidentally, if you’re wondering why I cheat, a significant factor in this LP was memories of this very boss fight.)

Pretty sure some of that blood is outside of you at this point…

Ashley is Kanon’s “half-self” because she successfully cut out about half of his guts at this point.

Kanon is still having “what am I fighting for” issues, the big zero.

Ashley wants to make friends! Tim and Lilka are still wary and weary, probably from all the fainting.

“It tells me to kill people. I’m sure you can relate.”

But Ashley elaborates that the “other me” is just another kind of power, and power is neither good nor bad, but something that can be used. And Ashley uses it for good! Hooray!

Kanon has some thinking to do.

Ashley, do you have ARMS hiring permissions? You might have to check with human resources.

“She has tried to kill us on three separate occasions!”
“And she’s good at it!”

Contingency plan! Ashley is concerned the demon inside of him might grow and take over, and, in that case, who better to have around than a demon slayer? And Kanon gets exactly what she wants! This is win-win for everybody!

Kanon is touched by Ashley’s suicidal plan.

But then company waddles over to spoil this fine conversation. Hello again, Judecca, Odessa’s master of traps.

“To… uh… get us to talk?”

Hey! Did he just call us nerds? He’s the nerd! He’s got glasses!

Nerd!

“Look, you guys were having a great heart to heart here, but it’s time to die.”

Just imagine I made a gif of the screen shaking. Those things always make me sick.

Also imagine a thrilling escape out of a room that nearly collapsed on our heroes, because the WA2 crew sure didn’t animate such a thing.

Kanon has been injured by falling rocks, and certainly isn’t limping because we just drained her of 9,000 HP. Let’s get her patched up, because we’re the good guys!

Cutscene teleport over to Holst…

Say hello again to our favorite mad scientist. I’d ask how she knew to meet us here, but we last saw Marivel with Irving, and you know that dude has us bugged six ways from Sunday.

“That kind of thing usually only happens if you get hit in the face with a bayonet…”

Marivel chastises Kanon for overdoing it with the bionic implants, but Kanon insists she wasn’t using her essence stat anyway.

… Hey, localization team? She’s not literally a robot lady.

There. Got you a screen shaking gif. Happy?

To the… back!

Guess Kanon isn’t officially allowed to join ARMS yet.

Dammit! Who let Kefka in town?

Better get a bucket!

And if there was any doubt as to who was responsible for this fiery mischief.

Hooray! Kanon has moved on from killing one demon to killing anyone that is remotely demonic! Progress!

Boss fight!

Tell ‘em, Kanon!

…. Wait a minute. Where’s our party?

Just Kanon! Yep, Kanon is now an official playable character.

Let’s check her equipment before we get going. Looks like she has her own unique “Bounty Hunter” class head and body gear, and her weapon type is dagger(s). Interestingly, she’s the only character in this game that has a default “sword type” weapon, which is unusual for JRPGs.

And here are Kanon’s skills. We’ve already seen literally all of these moves during her three fights as a boss, but now we’ve got ‘em on our side. Of course, given this is a boss fight, it’s not exactly the time for experimentation.

Or maybe it is, because Judecca is still weak as hell. Recall that he lost to a solo Tim during his last battle.

So Kanon only has “Gat Lv.X” skills for her main FP levels. These moves basically use a regular offensive skill, and make it a little stronger. Nothing too exciting, but it is useful for dealing some extra damage. Unfortunately, the different levels are based on the “rank” of the skills, and we don’t have any Lv.2 skills right now.

Lv.1 is good to go, though.

That move would have killed Tim, like, twice.

And we’ll talk about those Gat skills a little more later, because Judecca just croaked.

Or… not. Guess it’s one of those “win to lose” battles. Note that if you do somehow lose to Judecca, it is a game over.

She’s just having a rough day, okay!?

Guess a cryptic warning is the Odessa severance package.

Bye!

Now Kanon has to deal with Dr. Marivel again. That isn’t fun for anybody.

Kanon, could you stop trying to be cool for five minutes? You’re already in the conference room.

Boss fight! ... Just kidding.

“Ha ha, Kanon, you killer. I meant ‘kidder’. I swear!”

I refuse to count that little detour as a mission, one way or another. Now it’s time for the real deal.

Yeah, there’s a big shocker. Odessa has been plucking up lost technology like it’s their job. The only other guy that seems able to do that is sitting at the table right now.

Hey! I remember that area, it’s where REDACTED was REDACTED into pieces!

Guys! You forgot your newest member! Guys!

Irving knows Kanon! Gasp? I mean, she is a merc, and Irving seems to have no problem hiring mercs, so this isn’t that crazy.

Yes, Kanon, we get it.

Irving knows Kanon’s real name! Or old name!

Yeah, old name. Don’t be a douche, Irving.

Nothing like a cyborg lady that you apparently know to make you rethink your priorities.

And here’s the other battle detail about Kanon: Kanon will learn new attacks, but only through actually using her FP-powered attacks. Every attack has its own odds on “sparking” a new attack, and you earn those Level 2 (and higher!) attacks through using Kanon’s abilities all the damn time. This means that, like Tim, there is basically always a reason to have Kanon in your party, and keeping her out of the battle does nothing to upgrade her combat parameters.

In other words, for optimal “gains”, always have Tim deliver the final blow on a monster, and always have Kanon use her bionic attacks. Ashley, Lilka, and the dearly departed have (had) no similar skill leveling mechanics.

Other Kanon bonus: she comes with radar! Kanon makes finding random crap on the overworld a lot easier. We’ll see that as soon as we get some fresh air.

May as well take a little stroll before we start the next mission. Tim and Scott are still hanging out at the chateau. Ebecho is one of the nerds down in the engine room with Gabacho, incidentally.

I am going to cry.

Also, Marina back home finally updated her dialogue, too. Incidentally, she doesn’t change her tune immediately after Brad dies, but does at some point after the train incident. I guess word doesn’t travel all that fast on Filgaia.

Okay, time to teleport over to that desert. Now check out the bottom left of the screen. That radar shows us the location of everything that is discoverable. Kanon, you are the best party member.

Yellow dots are items, and green dots are locations. Note that a green dot (and its matching location) will not appear until the proper plot flag has triggered it. However, if you’d like, you can have an easier time finding those optional dungeons right now.

But we wouldn’t like, as it’s time to quit for the day just when things are getting interesting. Coffin of 100 Eyes? That sounds like a cool place to hang out.

Next time on Wild Arms 2: You thought he was gone forever, but you were wrong! They all said it couldn’t be done, but he will not stay buried! The greatest, smartest, most heroic character ever in this game, nay, this entire franchise, finally returns! Are you ready for the return of the king? And his buddy Ard? Be prepared for their glorious return!

Guild Galad is weird, you'd think due to how it looks its BGM would also be asian inspired, but nope. It has a unique town theme alright, but it sounds like a goofy futuristic tune. It almost reminds me of the BGM you hear when you arrive at Solaris in Xenogears.

As for Kanon's line in battle about male and female winning out, I always chalked that up to an odd translation choice, and originally the male and female the script referred to were the man and woman in the fight, Ashley and Kanon, and how only one or the other would survive it.

But hey, who knows? With a localization this wobbly either one could be right, and I like yours a lot more in retrospect.

Previously on Wild Arms 2: Kanon finally decided to stop trying to kill Ashley, and joined ARMS with the express purpose of eventually killing Ashley. But he’s cool with it! See? He can accept Kanon for who she is.

And now we’re investigating The Coffin of 100 Eyes, which is supposed to be a power source for Odessa’s latest scheme, but Ashley ain’t buyin’ it.

I choose to believe Lilka’s previous outburst echoed down giant, empty halls for like an hour.

“One of their little traps.” Yes, Kanon, like one of those traps you used on the rest of ARMS. Twice. At least once yesterday.

“Meh, a dungeon is a dungeon. Let’s go for it.”

Lilka’s short attention span and a cruddy localization occasionally gives the impression that Lilka has brain damage. Come to think of it, that would be an interesting concept for a JRPG: You start off pretty all-together, but after being bonked by monsters every six steps for a solid couple of hours, your main character has difficulty counting the ol’ potion inventory (and you’ve only got six). Could be fun!

This is a lovely little moment, though. Now we’ve got Kanon and Tim, but Lilka and Ashley were part of ARMS v.1, and it’s nice that they both recount how they’re still thinking WWBD (what would Brad do) frequently.

Anyway, time to get going.

Coffin is going to be another vaguely tech-y dungeon, not unlike basically every Odessa base in this entire game.

Oh boy! We’re gonna get treasure! Eventually!

Seems like it has been a while since we saw HP restoring crystals. Like in some other dungeons, these crystals are useful for “have I been here before” style navigation. Could have just given us a mini-map, guys…

Fork! Let’s head up, as the sky is the limit with our intrepid adventurers (and maybe we’ll score that treasure).

But first, let’s battle some giant mutant rabbits and their pet goblin in a random encounter.

This dungeon is the first we can really use Kanon in a party setting. As you might expect, the human weapon is a great physical attacker, and she moves pretty fast to boot. Honestly, give or take a few thousand HP, she’s pretty much exactly like her boss incarnations. Unfortunately, she has even fewer offensive options than Brad or Ashley, so she’s pretty much only ever going to hit things hard. But after a few dungeons of an almost all-mage party, she’s a godsend.

And now we got that treasure! Kanon’s first tool!

“Wire hook” my ass, I know a grappling hook when I see it!

So this dungeon is basically the wire hook testing grounds. The WH will see use in other locations, but you’ll be tired of it before the third floor of this base.

The trick you will quickly learn is that if there is a grappling point near a pit, you need to avoid grappling to nonexistent land. A trip down a pit is always an inconvenience.

But grapple over from another side, and you’ll earn some treasure like it ain’t no thang.

Ah, yes, the bayonet named for M. Bison’s lesser known brother, Dusty.

Further along, we find a computer terminal that is spitting out gibberish. Where’s Brad when you need him? Oh, right, exploded.

Nice of Sony to plug the Nintendo 64.

Can you guess the names of the next few dungeons?

This isn’t Jeopardy, but, sure Ash, I’ll give you points for that one.